No Joke: The Onion Faces Layoffs by Univision, Says Report - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2018/07/06/the-onion-layoffs-by-univision/ <comment><USER2> I worked at The Onion a few years ago. The content teams there were some of the most dedicated and passionate professionals I've had the pleasure of working with in my career.

This is an upsetting story. Despite so much upheaval in print and publishing at large, and the unfortunate circumstance that reality has become as absurd as the headlines of The Onion a decade ago, everyone there comes in every day ready to give it all they've got. It honestly is a remarkable staff and sometimes I really miss it there.

<comment><USER3> There's a great episode of This American Life from 2008 with a behind-the- scenes look at how the staff comes up with headlines: [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/348/tough- room](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/348/tough-room)

It sounds like an amazing place to work!

<comment><USER2> I was a developer there, not a writer, but this kind of mentality was so basic to the entire company. It reinforces a great deal of humility -- not just in your work but as a person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Half a decade ago, The Onion reached the pinnacle of satire with their Onion News Network. What made it different was the presence of a really solid fourth wall. Not once is there a wink at the camera or any indication that the actors are "in on it".

All the satire I've seen in more recent years has had people talking in an exaggerated manner about absurd events. They don't talk like real people.

My Favorite ONN videos

[https://youtu.be/D04wb7P_v-4](https://youtu.be/D04wb7P_v-4)

[https://youtu.be/XUT8ec24anM](https://youtu.be/XUT8ec24anM)

[https://youtu.be/kOHABYhZ7a8](https://youtu.be/kOHABYhZ7a8)

[https://youtu.be/84phU8of02U](https://youtu.be/84phU8of02U)

[https://youtu.be/EDWo6m5hbG4](https://youtu.be/EDWo6m5hbG4)

<comment><USER5> I still send this one around a lot: "Sony Releases Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work" \- [https://youtu.be/8AyVh1_vWYQ](https://youtu.be/8AyVh1_vWYQ)

<comment><USER6> Wow. I haven't laughed that hard in a while

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Two of my favourites:

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA)

Anonymous Hero Donates Hospital 200 Human Kidneys - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_5nLxZVoPo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_5nLxZVoPo)

</comment><comment> 52-6F-62 That's sad. Especially these days— seems like satire is as important as ever.

For fans of the Onion, there's a rising Canadian counterpart. They started off kind of slowly, but have started to come into their own— especially with Ontario's recent election. They sometimes cover American events as well.

[https://www.thebeaverton.com](https://www.thebeaverton.com)

ex:

[https://www.thebeaverton.com/2018/07/ford-vows-to-treat- asyl...](https://www.thebeaverton.com/2018/07/ford-vows-to-treat-asylum- seekers-like-his-own-family/)

[https://www.thebeaverton.com/2018/06/andrea-horwath- looking-...](https://www.thebeaverton.com/2018/06/andrea-horwath-looking- forward-to-continuing-to-have-no-power/)

<comment><USER8> There is also the Burrard Street Journal. A lot of the satire will be lost on Americans who don't pay attention to Canadian local news/politics.

[https://www.burrardstreetjournal.com/](https://www.burrardstreetjournal.com/)

<comment> 52-6F-62 Never heard of this. Its great!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Worth linking to the original report: [https://www.thedailybeast.com/the- onion-clickhole-av-club-br...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-onion- clickhole-av-club-brace-for-layoffs)

If nothing else, for its closing anecdote:

> _One former Univision executive joked to The Daily Beast that UCI seemingly > does not differentiate between the Onion Inc. sites, and is "not even sure > what Clickhole is."_

> _When asked during an all-hands meeting with staffers from one site earlier > this year what his favorite article was on an Onion Inc. site, Univision's > head of digital Sameer Deen would not answer._

<comment><USER10> If I were a billionaire I'd buy the Onion, it's so sad to see it being treated like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's been pretty obvious for a while that The Onion is struggling. I love a lot of their material, but lately a lot of their writing about others they see as threats to their ad-supported business model has been far less funny than mean spirited. Almost like an Onion headline.

"Humor site tries to save business by giving up on humor"

</comment><comment><USER12> That's too bad, the onion is still very good with political satire, though it doesn't give you a good one daily unless Washington is particularly poor that week.

A recent good one: [https://local.theonion.com/man-offended-by-rude-female- cowor...](https://local.theonion.com/man-offended-by-rude-female-coworker- continuing-to-spea-1827204473)

</comment><comment><USER13> For me comedy comes from good timing and the unexpected. I've tried to read the Onion but never found it funny because it's formula of satire is expected from the beginning. Sure, they have some witty observations and funny titles, but the articles read like an SNL skit that goes on too long.

The written word probably doesn't help too much either. Comedians frequently use pauses and pace to accentuate the humor and without it, in my mind reading the Onion sounds like poor comedic timing.

I think there was a reason political satire was traditionally effective in cartoon or stand up comedy format.

<comment><USER14> Not liking the Onion is probably just a matter of personal taste rather than evidence of the limits of the written word as a method for conveying political satire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love the onion. It's slowly become the only reason I use Facebook anymore.

<comment><USER16> Plot twist: The onion becomes the CIA project that fools people on using Facebook, another CIA project: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqggW08BWO0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqggW08BWO0)

<comment><USER15> Ha. Sneaky CIA knows me too well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I first found about The Onion in 1991 when I was a summer intern at Intel in Folsom, California. A fellow intern from UW Madison told me about it. I subscribed to the paper version: this was before it was on the internet. It was $28 a year.

Two years later, they went to a color version and raised the price to about $45 a year, if I recall correctly. I said "screw it" and didn't renew my subscription.

It was more of an "underground" thing at the time. I enjoyed it again a few years later when it became an internet site.

</comment><comment><USER18> curious, does this affect AV Club, which I believe was a shoot-off from The Onion?

I really love AV Club's content, hope it doesn't go away.

Of course, I also love The Onion, it's an institution.

<comment><USER19> The AV Club has already had a few rounds of Univision driven cuts and overhauls that've impacted it pretty hugely in a bad way.

However, I believe the AV Club are about as independent of each other as Kotaku, Deadspin, etc at the moment, so these layoffs shouldn't directly impact them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The Onion is long in the tooth, but Clickhole at times manages to pull off the perfect surrealist humor. Although at a glance, even they seem to have declined a bit.

</comment><comment><USER21> I wish The Onion were still funny; can't really recall visiting them in the past 3 years because of some funny video they were famous for.

<comment><USER22> We're living in a period where real events are as absurd and as brain- breakingly bizarre as satire. It makes satire less of a release of tension and more of a depressing reminder.

Satire doesn't make you laugh when you can barely write an Onion headline that isn't only slightly expanded from reality.

<comment><USER23> -Brilliant 60's satiricist Tom Lehrer famously declared political satire dead when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

<comment><USER24> I wonder what he thought of Obama getting his.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I really love the Onion, but I think I have laughed much more at The Hard Times these past two years. I'm not sure what that means, but I hope some of the Onion guys maybe make it over there.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hard to stay relevant when half of their joke headlines could be real these days. (eg. "President Threatens Stock Market")

<comment><USER27> Or last week's "DOJ lawyer delays court hearing on reuniting children with families due to weekend dog-sitting responsibilities"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Herbert Kornfeld would have found the money to avoid this fate.

<comment><USER24> He'd have put the smackdown on the waanabe g's in purchasing fo' real.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> TBH, I think BabylonBee has been putting out better content for quite some time. Fewer sacred cows, harder punches thrown.

<comment><USER30> I giggled, but that's a bit too Republican for many tastes...</comment></comment>


Show HN: Folyo finds vetted freelance designers who want to work on your startup - <AUTHOR> http://folyo.me

<comment><AUTHOR> Folyo is a private job board for freelance design projects that I launched two months ago. You submit a project, and it's sent by email to the 300 or so designers on the site. What makes Folyo special is that every designer has been approved individually, ensuring you only get high quality leads.

If you value design and would like to get around 10 leads of good designers who are available and want to work with you, please check it out and let me know what you think!</comment>


Ask HN: Project Collaboration Web Apps? - <AUTHOR>

So, someone submitted proofhub.com earlier today and the software there is almost perfect. However, it's beta/alpha and is lacking some serious features.
I cant invite a new person into an already created project I cant make someone else an admin so they can create projects
Just a few little things like that...
I'm wondering if anyone else knows of some "ready for prime time" software to do this via the web... and without breaking the bank. I'm thinking $99/month OR LESS for an "unlimited" type account.
What's everyone else using? <comment><USER2> www.basecamphq.com I'm not sure there is anything better</comment>


Apple's rotten appeal - <AUTHOR> http://www.politico.eu/article/opinion-apples-rotten-appeal/ <comment><USER2> Half the comments here refer to Ireland offering Apple some special deal. To the best of my ability to determine (IANAL), there is NO special deal. Apple is simply using a bog-standard Double Irish arrangement. It's a very common income-structuring arrangement for transnational corporations.

Every comment that says "this'd be fine if Ireland let every company do it"? Guess what, Ireland lets any company do it. No signup required. It's just how corporate income tax law works in Ireland.

I agree that tax havens are bad for civilization, and it seems to me that the EU's ruling is in a generally pro-civilization direction (whether or not it is, in fact, legal, under current EU law).

Also, when people say "why is the EU allowed to rule on this", the answer to such questions is always "because the member state (in this case Ireland) first agreed to a treaty, and then ratified that treaty by creating an Irish law saying that Ireland had to obey the rulings". That's how treaties work. I'm not saying that's a good thing (I have serious concerns about the interaction between international treaty processes and what's left of democracy, but repairing it isn't helped by misunderstanding the mechanism). Again, the EU high court has jurisdiction because _Irish law says it does_ , backed up by the probability that if Ireland flouts it hard enough, long enough, other member states are likely to jointly retaliate.

<comment><USER3> I believe Ireland is failing to even charge Apple its statutory tax rate, which is why the the whole kerfluffle over Europe claiming back taxes are owed to Ireland, Apple claiming they don't, and Ireland claiming they don't want the taxes because they fear it will trigger a move by Apple from its shores.

I assume offering deals like that runs afoul of international trade agreements.

<comment><USER4> What deal? Ireland has tax laws on the books and Apple is following them. Ireland also has a law on the books saying it must comply with the EU.

Nothing about this has anything directly to do with Apple. The real question is which of Ireland laws 'win'.

<comment><USER5> This is not about Irish law, but EU law. Ireland has to follow EU laws because the EU says so, not Irish laws.

<comment><USER6> The actual problem here is that no, it's not EU law.

The EU has a fixed set of "competencies", i.e. areas of law it controls. Taxation is _very very explicitly_ not one of them. Member states did not ever sign up to letting the EU Commission control their local tax rates.

The EU is now trying to work around the treaty-defined limits on its own power by redefining low tax rates as "aid". Beyond the Orwellian doublethink required to define taxation as aid, this is a problem because if it's allowed to define tax rates France and Germany don't like as "state aid" then the EU has effectively increased its own powers far beyond what the treaties were written to allow, without any kind of democratic process or even consent of the national leaders.

<comment><USER7> It is simply not true that there is no legislative basis for the EU prosecuting Ireland. The relevant document is the "Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union", especially article 107 ([http://eur- lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A1...](http://eur- lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A12008E107)), which is quite explicit about what is allowed and what is not in terms of government subsidies:

"Save as otherwise provided in the Treaties, any aid granted by a Member State or through State resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favouring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods shall, in so far as it affects trade between Member States, be incompatible with the internal market."

Taxation is explicitly mentioned in the text as a form of subsidy, hence the EU does not overreach when it tries to enforce the regulations that the member states have agreed upon. It is of course debatable when a taxation is too low, but an effective tax rate of 0.005 percent provides enough evidence of a hidden subsidy to justify the punishment (IMHO).

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the link. Like a lot of EU law, that text is so vague as to be meaningless.

Perhaps this counts:

 _3\. The following may be considered to be compatible with the internal market: aid to promote the economic development of areas where the standard of living is abnormally low or where there is serious underemployment ... aid to facilitate the development of certain economic activities or of certain economic areas, where such aid does not adversely affect trading conditions to an extent contrary to the common interest;_

Or perhaps it doesn't, given that this is stated as "may be incompatible" not "shall be incompatible".

Though I did get a laugh out of the explicit exception for Germany that can only be removed if the Commission allows.

Like I said - as written this text could be seen as forbidding even very basic things like VAT, as it doesn't apply to all types of goods or applies at different rates and thus "favours certain undertakings".

<comment><USER7> The exception for Germany is to account for subsidies that are given to East Germany, which had to be "pulled" to the level of the West after the reunification, but which still lags behind even to this day. BTW the commission is currently pursuing Germany for being too lax with Volkswagen after Dieselgate (and I'm happy they do this). So, for me the fact the EU commission can do this is one of the positive sides of the European Union.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's pretty obvious why Apple's appeal is based on procedural grounds and that's because the EC decision is against Ireland and not Apple.

[http://www.finance.gov.ie/sites/default/files/161219%20Summa...](http://www.finance.gov.ie/sites/default/files/161219%20Summary%20of%20Appeal%20Grounds%20Publised%20under%20Embargo.pdf)

Ireland's appeal gets into the meat of it. I've been reading about this case as well as others against Luxembourg and Netherlands and I suspect it's very likely these decisions by the EC will not survive appeal. The use of state aid laws in this way is novel and the precedent it would set if they somehow prevailed would be a massive shift in sovereignty from member states to the EU.

Low tax member states like Ireland have been under political assault for decades and this is the latest attempt to redress something the EU has no power over. If the EU wanted a unified tax regime across all members it should have been designed that way from the outset, but then the EU project may not have ever taken off if it required ceding so much sovereignty.

Politically it seems like these cases can backfire massively. I suspect that when the EC began these investigations they didn't expect Brexit could happen. The implicit gamble they're making is popular support for combatting tax avoiders will be greater than rising Euroscepticism.

EDIT: Just to be clear because it seems my comment is being misunderstood by several people, my second paragraph is my comment specifically about this case. The third paragraph is my explanation of the political context in which these cases have been brought. It's obvious these cases aren't about tax rates (it is indirectly, which was my point) because the EU pretty clearly has no authority over that.

<comment><USER9> Apple might be able to get away here for now, but laws will continue to be adjusted in order to make it harder and harder to arbitrarily move profits around. This is an ongoing process that has started years ago. These legal adjustments are all aimed towards making sure that profits are taxed in the country in which they are actually generated. In the worst case, this will end up as a cat-and-mouse game between governments and corporations and lead to a bureaucratic nightmare, which would be entirely avoidable if companies like Apple were more honest to begin with. And don't tell me that companies have a "fiduciary duty" to avoid as much taxes as possible in order to maximize profits. That's a myth. Shareholders are completely free to define the purpose of a company in its articles. And in fact, the articles usually don't say "maximize profits at all cost", but are kept general enough to allow for paying taxes as it was intended by the law.

<comment><USER10> When an iPad is sold in Germany, does Apple pay VAT in Germany or in Ireland? (Serious question. I don't live in the EU.)

<comment><USER11> Apple doesn't pay the VAT the consumer does. That is why Apple products costs roughly 30% (24% VAT + some extra due to fucking up the dollar to euro conversion) more in Finland when compared to US even though they ship directly from a factory in China.

<comment><USER12> Yes, the consumer technically pays the tax. However, Apple acts as the collector of the tax from the consumer, and is responsible for "passing it on" to the appropriate tax authority. So, the reform the asked question: What tax authority does Apple report and pay the taxes to?

And the answer is that the EU regulations state that VAT taxes are to be paid in the country in which the transaction takes place. If the transaction is online (and potentially therefore spanning multiple countries), the _customer 's_ location is used as the place of transaction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Where do I sign to pay 0.005 percent tax on my income?

<comment><USER14> First you have to promise you'll provide at least a 4% employment boost in my town. e.g. (total jobs 5,500 and total population 119,230 or 4.6% in the case of Cork Ireland)

Then assuming you agree to keep those jobs in my town for the next 10 years and considering the average salary of the employee you hire is a bit more than most in the area. There income tax combined with the increase in aggregate sales on goods and services it might be a good deal for the area. At least this is the typical rational for tax incentives. The issue with tax incentives is IMO is they create the perception of corruption (and in many cases maybe real corruption) - favoring one business over another etc...

<comment><USER15> You need a bit of context around Ireland, too. Ireland has been suffering from a mass exodus of young workers over the last few years. At its height, 10,000 young adults a week were leaving the country. Nobody wants to live in cold, rainy mountains working as a miner or fisherman. The thought was that if they could attract some swanky tech companies, the next generation of workers would be more enthused about staying in the country.

<comment><USER16> I believe "the last few years" is the wrong context. These tax deals began in the late 70ies, at a time where Potato and Fish were the dominant industries of Ireland. It's easy to forget that they've experienced massive economic improvements since joining the European Union.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The tax haven system is deeply flawed and I hope this gets the ball rolling in making these types of deals less prevalent.

<comment><USER18> I think it is about as flawed as negotiated salaries by well qualified software engineers. I do not see clamoring for standard salary rate for $73K or some such in silicon valley because it is much more accessible to everyone. Instead we will negotiate and settle for 2-5x of that amount. Companies or people negotiate to get much better deal for themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> >0.005 percent

C'mon Politico writers. Do you really not know the difference between and 0.005 percent and 0.005? You are off by a factor of 100! Apple is allegedly taxed at half a percent! Not 0.005 percent!

I guess there's a reason journalists are known for their writing and not basic math skills.

Moreover, Bloomberg reports this alleged tax rate is entirely made up (funny given Politico is all about fact checking) and there's no primary source affirmation of it: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-01/pinning-d...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-01/pinning- down-apple-s-alleged-0-005-tax-rate-mission-impossible)

<comment><USER20> Oh lord, it's this all over again:

[http://verizonmath.blogspot.ca/2006/12/verizon-doesnt- know-d...](http://verizonmath.blogspot.ca/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars- from-cents.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I hope the EU wins. Tax havens need to be illegal. In the US they have created a race to the bottom between economically struggling states. States compete with each other to offer the most incentives and the only ones who win out of this are the corporations.

<comment><USER22> Well, the citizens of those states, who find employment with those corporations, also win, do they not?

<comment><USER21> Nope because the state is subsidizing the companies and who pays for the state to run? They do. So they end up with infrastructure and education budget shortfalls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> My wife is a CPA and works for one of the "Big Four" AND her engagement currently involves auditing an investment firm in Ireland, and the EU.

After speaking with her, and getting her opinion, it seems most comments about this situation are rooted in too many arbitrary feelings without an understanding of how the tax law actually works.

The crux of this issue is that US has a global tax code while EU has a localized tax code. What EU is proposing is really interesting because, if they win, Apple would be taxed twice, once on the money that their holding company has in Ireland and again once that money is brought over to the US.

EU doesn't seem to care what other tax codes there are as their tax code is upheld by each conuntry in the EU and then there are EU panels that test for anti-competitive practices, etc.

This raises issues in soveirnty of Nations if EU can supersede their tax code. It also raises a bunch of ethical issues within the EU when a company (investment institution) is based in one country while investing in another.

To minimize the words written, from what I gather is this:

Apple's situation is difficult because their argument is that they did not create (IP) in Ireland so they do not owe full corp tax on holding their money there. However, they pay all sales, (current) corp, etc. tax for all of their products where the item is sold or employees are working. Hence, this tax isn't a sales but a different classification of corp tax. They are being asked to pay taxes as if they are an Irish company that creates or manufactures their product in Ireland. Not as a holding company that pays their standard tax rate. There a lot of semantics in that statement and it's difficult to reiterate the explanation without a full blown essay.

For the rest of EU, their tax code is a clusterfuck (for lack of a better term). Companies have to pay taxes in the country they do business + country that's their "Home". So an investment firm will have separate tax rates/brackets as the money moves acoss borders. This gets really complicated when countries are doing business outside of the EU but have their base there. There is also an issue with which currency the taxes have to be paid in (seems trivial except the exchange rate isn't stable).

By all accounts, this looks like a pissing contest between EU and US firms and their stance can have global ramifications that are not foreseeable. One interesting perspective my wife raised is that because taxes are paid in "home county" currency, manipulation of the market becomes a viable option for multi-national EU/US/Workd orgs to lower/raise their taxes paid. This seems far fetched but a tiny change becomes big money on something like 14B (I doubt Apple will resort to such tactics because of money involved).

TL;DR Apple pays taxes they are suppose to pay per Irish tax code. The money held there would be taxed if they move to US or if they invest/purchase items in Ireland/EU. Currently proposal is using a loophole within a loophole to attempt to double tax Apple (or any other company they choose to go after).

<comment><USER24> > TL;DR Apple pays taxes they are suppose to pay per Irish tax code

small addition: the Irish tax code was found to be illegal.

<comment><USER23> > small addition: the Irish tax code was found to be illegal.

By Whom? If the Irish found their tax code to be illegal, that makes no sense.

If the EU found Irish tax code to be illegal then the word "illegal" becomes ambiguous as it involved Sovereignty of a National tax code vs EU guidelines.

EU doesn't have a standardized tax code so finding something illegal would imply there are rules and unifications, which there aren't.

Here [0] is a 10 page summary of every tax code that is in the EU. By 10 page summary I mean 10 pages of actual tax code that then leads to the actual code that is per country.

EU's system isn't unified...

[0]: [https://www.scribd.com/doc/234210334/Oracle- EBS-R12-European...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/234210334/Oracle- EBS-R12-European-Localization)

<comment><USER24> > If the EU found Irish tax code to be illegal then the word "illegal" becomes > ambiguous as it involved Sovereignty of a National tax code vs EU > guidelines.

translation: I choose to accept the court that agrees with me and bluntly question the higher ones that don't

> EU doesn't have a standardized tax code so finding something illegal would > imply there are rules and unifications, which there aren't.

I just leave this here for your amusement: [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE...](http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:12008E107&from=EN)

<comment><USER23> > translation: I choose to accept the court that agrees with me and bluntly > question the higher ones that don't

> I just leave this here for your amusement: [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- > content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE...](http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- > content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE..).

Point #1 is my favorite: "1\. Save as otherwise provided in the Treaties, any aid granted by a Member State or through State resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favoring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods shall, in so far as it affects trade between Member States, be incompatible with the internal market."

What they're basically saying is that if I don't agree, it's wrong. Tax code is complex precisely because of statements from Article 107.

#3.e "(e) such other categories of aid as may be specified by decision of the Council on a proposal from the Commission."

In your assumption, you are correct: I am questioning a higher court that over rules a lower sovereign court based on an elastic clause without limits.

<comment><USER24> The "lower sovereign court" has absolutely no meaning when the whole operation was set up to make use of the EU joint market.

Do you claim EU should shut up and accept one of its members is stealing everyones tax income? Does that sound logical to you?

<comment><USER23> > The "lower sovereign court" has absolutely no meaning when the whole > operation was set up to make use of the EU joint market.

So why not have a joint EU tax code to simplify life? That's the issue what all corporations face at the moment. Read the white paper that was linked in a previous comment, it's not too dense and makes the correct points. G20 have been working on a unified world accounting system but EU has t accepted it. Instead, they'll use arbitrary rules that only govern EU and apply to multi- national corporations.

In my opinion the discussion is focused on Apple (clearly because of the articles the comments are on) with strong opinions rooted in some kind of thievery that they're participating in. However, the root analysis is that the tax system is just FUBAR and the 14B levy won't fix it. Once that ruling was filed, the money goes into escrow so Apple is already out. They're fighting for a regulatory change that all companies (regardless if they're in the EU/US or elsewhere) will benefit from.

Setting emotions aside, the issue is a change in tax system is required. Otherwise, all they're doing is putting lipstick on a pig.

<comment><AUTHOR> > So why not have a joint EU tax code to simplify life?

Subsidiarity.

[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ftu/pdf/en/FTU_1.2.2.pdf](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ftu/pdf/en/FTU_1.2.2.pdf)

It's really bizarre: if the EU creates the rules directly, it is "overreach" that interferes with "sovereignty" (despite the fact that these powers were ceded willingly, never mind...), if, on the other hand, the EU leaves things to member states and just imposes principles for those rules, it's "too complicated".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't think there are very strong legal foundations for the case against Apple, but I think that in terms of public opinion, Apple is in a very weak position.

People are sick of these corporate tax schemes; we need someone's head on a stick (at whatever cost). Brexit and Donald Trump have shown us that people care less and less about doing the right thing "by the book" anymore; people just want to do the right thing for the majority - Even if that is politically incorrect and will mess up the world order.

I think that just like Brexit and Trump, this is just a continuation of the same rebellious movement against globalization and the elite establishment.

<comment><USER26> Majority: Brexit yes, Trump no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Damn, is Vestager in the running for Dane of the year?!?! I'm going to have to vote.

<comment><USER28> Too late, she won already: [http://www.b.dk/aaretsdansker](http://www.b.dk/aaretsdansker)

<comment><USER27> see this is what happens when one just gets Hacker news and foregoes the politiken subscription!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Why is the EU going after Apple now? They knew of this tax haven for years. It's the EU's fault for letting one of its members do this. The fact that they are trying to change the tax code in Ireland AND retroactively apply those laws is bananas.

If I take advantage of a tax loophole and the government closes that loophole, can they throw me in jail? Obviously people aren't companies but it sets dangerous precedent.

</comment><comment><USER30> How is it Apple's problem to pay for Ireland's mistake?

</comment><comment><USER31> > _The key point rests on language in Article 107 of the 2007 Treaty on the > Functioning of the European Union, which provides that "any aid granted by a > member state or through state resources in any form whatsoever which > distorts or threatens to distort competition by favoring certain > undertakings or the production of certain goods shall … be incompatible with > the internal market."_

I don't get this, to be honest.

Doesn't _every_ financial aid distort the competition, _by design_? What am I missing.

edit:

OK there is the whole article. It makes slightly more sense, but I would argue it's still hard to guess which aid falls where.

[http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE...](http://eur- lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:12008E107&from=EN)

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

Article 107

(ex Article 87 TEC)

1\. Save as otherwise provided in the Treaties, any aid granted by a Member State or through State resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favouring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods shall, in so far as it affects trade between Member States, be incompatible with the internal market.

2\. The following shall be compatible with the internal market:

(a) aid having a social character, granted to individual consumers, provided that such aid is granted without discrimination related to the origin of the products concerned;

(b) aid to make good the damage caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences;

(c) aid granted to the economy of certain areas of the Federal Republic of Germany affected by the division of Germany, in so far as such aid is required in order to compensate for the economic disadvantages caused by that division. Five years after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the Council, acting on a proposal from the Commission, may adopt a decision repealing this point.

3\. The following may be considered to be compatible with the internal market:

(a) aid to promote the economic development of areas where the standard of living is abnormally low or where there is serious underemployment, and of the regions referred to in Article 349, in view of their structural, economic and social situation;

(b) aid to promote the execution of an important project of common European interest or to remedy a serious disturbance in the economy of a Member State;

(c) aid to facilitate the development of certain economic activities or of certain economic areas, where such aid does not adversely affect trading conditions to an extent contrary to the common interest;

(d) aid to promote culture and heritage conservation where such aid does not affect trading conditions and competition in the Union to an extent that is contrary to the common interest;

(e) such other categories of aid as may be specified by decision of the Council on a proposal from the Commission.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>---

<comment><USER32> > Doesn't every financial aid distort the competition, by design? What am I > missing.

If the financial aid is given to every company in the country there is no distortion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> That website crashed twice in a row on my iPad.

</comment><comment><USER34> Apple _is_ being singled out. Politicians create this kind of loophole for their friends (giant industries like oil, defense, etc. - that are "invisible" to the public eye - and sometimes to benefit politicians themselves to put their dirty money in tax shelters) and then complain when a very visible business like Google or Apple uses it.

<comment><USER35> The Irish politicians clearly have different incentives than the EU ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Apple here is making threats, but they're threats the commission should listen to carefully.

I mean, if the Commission wants to drive US tech companies out of the EU on the specious grounds that it might help the moribund EU startup scene, go ahead. But let's just say I have no doubt the UK government is quietly watching.

I doubt it would be enormously difficult for Apple to relocate from Dublin to London.

<comment><USER37> > I doubt it would be enormously difficult for Apple to relocate from Dublin > to London.

Obviously it is not. Tax sheltering does not require much physical presence at all. It probably requires no more than changing a few contract between subsidiaries to initiate the cash movement to their fiscal haven of choice.

The real problem for Apple is for the money that is already there.

More generally this generation of tax avoidance is probably coming to an end: both the EU and the US are looking at it those days, and Ireland is one regulation away to have to find another way to print money.

Not quite sure what's the big deal. Tax avoidance scheme are rarely stable long term. Extracting tax money is a global competitive market between state and large companies/rich individual. You should sleep peacefully knowing that in all the possible resolution of this affair, Apple will always have to effectively pay less tax than possible to your little startup stuck in a single country tax system.

<comment><USER38> You don't understand, they would gain nothing by moving to London. Either London stays in the EU market in which case it must not give Apple unfair advantage or London does not stay in the EU market in which case Apple must pay tax for EU sales in EU.

<comment><USER37> Yes and no, maybe. You are right that this current flavour of tax avoidance is not going to work anymore and moving to London now or in the future will not change the outcome for the money mentioned here, only future money.

However about London, once outside the EU they will have the opportunity to position themselves as a tax haven with clever new tax avoidance scheme for large companies.

Now you probably automatically dismissed the idea because that's a crazy idea. Setting up yourself as a tax haven does not scale to the size of the UK economy, and the UK would need to do it at a time of intense scrutiny by the global community and the EU will certainly see that as a aggressive negotiation tactic which is not going to help the Brexit negotiation. But well, there were better arguments for not leaving the EU in the first place, and yet the UK seems to merely go for the hardest Brexit possible. So who knows ? McDonald (fiscal) move to London is worrying. Nissan and others are a bit too happy after their secret chat with the PM.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Glacier Deep Archive Storage Class - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-s3-storage-class-glacier-deep-archive/ <comment><USER2> $0.00099 per GB in Virginia and Oregon. That's a quarter of the cost of glacier!

I'm curious how they're able to achieve that. They released to all regions at once (including GovCloud!), so that suggests its not new hardware or a significant change in software.</comment>


The Readability of Scientific Texts Is Decreasing Over Time - <AUTHOR> http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/03/28/119370 <comment><AUTHOR> It looks like research distillers [0] are indeed needed in many fields.

[0] [http://distill.pub/2017/research-debt/](http://distill.pub/2017/research- debt/) via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13932806](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13932806)</comment>


Timeline of the Far Future - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future <comment><USER2> Related ideas that seem kind of obvious but haven't seen them mentioned anywhere yet:

1\. We live in the most interesting 200 year period of Earth so far in its 4.5B year history. The rate of progress has never been so high, one notable example of why this period is special and unprecedented is that it's the first time humans or any species has visited the Moon. It's quite a mind-blowing coincidence.

2\. Human history will probably look like a sigmoid curve - long period of stagnation followed by rapid progress followed by a long period of stagnation. We were born into a very short period of something like 1000 years with the highest rate of progress. After that, we'll gradually enter an equilibrium in which things won't change much (or a period in which history will just repeat with minor variations). The year 300,000 will look similar to year 301,000 - despite being separated by a millennium - this is unthinkable at this point in time. You can't keep inventing novel technology and art at current pace for a million years. Has there been any debate about how this long period of equilibrium could look like?

<comment><USER3> > We live in the most interesting 200 year period of Earth so far in its 4.5B > year history.

People have been saying this for centuries now. And they will probably continue to do so in the future. Our rate of progress looks so high because we are living in it. Cut to another two hundred years and 2000 will look just like 1800.

<comment><USER2> For the last few centuries maybe. Your underestimating how utterly anomalous has been the last about 200 years. There's a clear contrast between that and all prior 200 year periods. The idea of progress is relatively recent, 2 thousands years ago it basically didn't exist (from the book Sapiens).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Mandatory Isaar Arthur links:

\- Civilizations at the End of Time: Iron Stars [1]

\- Civilizations at the End of Time: Black Hole Farming [2]

\- Boltzman Brains and the Anthropic Principle [3] [4]

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pld8wTa16Jk&t=1080s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pld8wTa16Jk&t=1080s)

[2]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qam5BkXIEhQ&t=10s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qam5BkXIEhQ&t=10s)

[3]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UfQb_- XAuY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UfQb_-XAuY)

[4]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrK9EaQRp2I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrK9EaQRp2I)

</comment><comment><USER5> Fun fact: this link has already been submitted 27x on HN

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22Timeline%20of%20the%20Far%20Future%22&sort=byDate&type=story)

<comment><USER6> Best to fish for the nontrivial threads:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=comments%3E4%20%22Timeline%20of%20the%20Far%20Future%22&sort=byDate&type=story)

<comment><USER5> Thanks dang! I did know the comments command

<comment><USER5> *didn't

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have often thought about what it would be like in the far, far future. After the age of baryons comes to an end, we would also see an end to _structure_ : you cannot build anything out of leptons larger than a positron and electron orbiting one another, delicately, at a distance. No chains, no three-way bonds or glorious carbon four-way bonds, just a froth of electrons, positrons, and variously-flavred neutrinos and anti-neutrinos.

If the Big Rip were to happen, one might imagine civilizations forming around the event horizons of black holes ("dead stars still burn") fizzing out Hawking radiation, getting ever closer to avoid the Big Rip, a controlled fall designed to balance against the stretching of space while harvesting what you could get from Hawking radiation. I've seen projections, sketches, really, of computation that involved states only changing as energy became free, and so these civilizations would be almost frozen in amber to outsiders but ticking along from their vantage point, up until the black holes' "temperature" drops too far below the ambient themal bath. The decay gets faster and faster as the curvature of the event horizon increases, so that civilization's end would have an incredible speedup right before the black hole itself evaporated.

<comment><USER8> An electron-positron bound system decays in under a nanosecond:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positronium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positronium)

<comment><USER7> "Delicately."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >50,000 years - The length of the day used for astronomical timekeeping reaches about 86,401 SI seconds due to lunar tides decelerating the Earth's rotation. Under the present-day timekeeping system, either a leap second would need to be added to the clock every single day, or else by then, in order to compensate, the length of the day would have had to have been officially lengthened by one SI second.

I guess we have another annoying clock problem to work on once we get done fixing the Y2038 and Y10k bugs.

</comment><comment><USER10> Some of Stephen Baxter's [1] books in the xeelee sequence explore a sci-fi version of this [2]; it's a fascinating ride, if you are interested in thinking of how sci-fi has dealt with this..

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Baxter_(author)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Baxter_\(author\))

[2] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_(Baxter_novel)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_\(Baxter_novel\))

<comment><USER11> Made me think of the Dancers at the End of Time books, although they're more philosophical than sci-fi.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dancers_at_the_End_of_Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dancers_at_the_End_of_Time)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Timelapse of the future: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA)

</comment><comment><USER13> Btw, what I don't get about black holes: why is everyone so fixed on the event horizon and calls everything below 'a singularity'?

From our point of view, of course, we don't have much use for it. But inside it might be rather interesting. For one thing, everything under the event horizon is unlikely to be homogenous. Captured matter is likely to form a much less object in the center of the hole, with a much smaller radius. Between EH and this 'core' many things can happen. For example, if matter forms N accretion disk spinning around the hole and just above the EH, why should it stop doing the same thing after it goes below? Only because we no longer can see it doesn't mean it stops existing and loses all energy and angular momentum. Or it does?

<comment><USER14> _> why is everyone so fixed on the event horizon and calls everything below 'a singularity'?_

They don't. The event horizon is at r = 2M. The singularity is at r = 0. There is an interior region in between, so the singularity is not "everything below" the horizon, and I'm not aware of any reputable source that says it is.

 _> why should it stop doing the same thing after it goes below?_

It's not that infalling matter will suddenly change its behavior as it crosses the horizon: it won't.

It's that infalling matter has very little time once it crosses the horizon, before it hits the singularity. For example, in a 1 solar mass black hole, it's only 10 microseconds from the horizon to the singularity. Since the time is linear in the mass of the hole, that means that for, say, the 3 million solar mass hole at the center of the Milky Way, it's only 30 million microseconds, or 30 seconds, from the horizon to the singularity. And even for the most massive hole we've observed, 66 billion solar masses, it's only 660 billion microseconds, or 660,000 seconds, or less than 8 days, from the horizon to the singularity. On a cosmic scale these times are very, very short.

 _> it doesn't mean it stops existing and loses all energy and angular momentum. Or it does?_

Any energy and angular momentum of matter falling into the hole gets added to the hole's mass and angular momentum.

<comment><USER13> > _It 's that infalling matter has very little time once it crosses the > horizon, before it hits the singularity. For example, in a 1 solar mass > black hole, it's only 10 microseconds from the horizon to the singularity._

Why should it be hitting the singularity at all? Why can't particles have a stable orbit just under the event horizon? Is it because the orbit speed would exceed the speed of light?

> _The singularity is at r = 0._

Also, why singularity at all? Neutron stars compress to a certain density and then stop compacting any further. Of course, gravity in black holes is stronger, but why people think that all matter would compact into a singularity? Can't it be a very dense object where compacting force is compensated by matter density limit? (i don't know the exact term in english, sorry)

<comment><USER14> _> Why should it be hitting the singularity at all?_

Because the singularity is in the future of every event inside the horizon. It's a moment of time, not a place in space. It can't be avoided because tomorrow can't be avoided.

 _> Why can't particles have a stable orbit just under the event horizon? Is it because the orbit speed would exceed the speed of light?_

That's one way of looking at it, yes.

 _> why singularity at all?_

Because that's what the math of GR predicts.

 _> Neutron stars compress to a certain density and then stop compacting any further._

Neutron stars have a maximum mass limit. So do white dwarfs and every other kind of stable compact object. Anything over that maximum mass limit has to collapse into a black hole.

 _> Can't it be a very dense object where compacting force is compensated by matter density limit?_

Not for objects above the maximum mass limit. See above.

<comment><USER13> > _Neutron stars have a maximum mass limit. So do white dwarfs and every other > kind of stable compact object. Anything over that maximum mass limit has to > collapse into a black hole._

See, this is the crux. From what I read in GR theory, once the neutron star gets over mass limit, the gravity becomes that big that light can't escape it any longer. OK. Light can't escape. Buy why would a matter suddenly work radically differently under the event horizon?

Imagine an asteroid, which has an escape velocity of 1m/s, so it's inhabitants can launch pinballs to outer space with a simple catapult. This asteroid eventually collides with another one, with an escape velocity of 2m/s, so pinballs wouldn't leave the body's gravity field. Nothing really changes on the asteroid, all physics processes work in the same regular way.

Why should it be that different with neutron star vs black hole? NS with ~3 solar masses has radius ~10km, and is a giant lump of neutrons packed together. To me it looks like BH should be the very similar lump of neutrons, just so heavy that light can no longer escape. So what? It should still be a spherical lump of neutrons underneath, just denser.

<comment><USER14> _> From what I read in GR theory, once the neutron star gets over mass limit, the gravity becomes that big that light can't escape it any longer._

No, that's not what happens. What happens is that if a neutron star just under the mass limit gains some mass, it _collapses_ into a black hole. It does not just change a little bit. It changes a lot.

There is no such thing as a static object that is "just short" of being a black hole. A theorem called Buchdahl's Theorem says that no static object can be smaller than 9/8 of the Schwarzschild radius for its mass, i.e., 9/8 of the size of a black hole of the same mass. That means there is a finite gap in size between any static object and a black hole. So any transition from some static object, whether it's a neutron star, white dwarf, or anything else, to a black hole can't be a small continuous transition.

 _> why would a matter suddenly work radically differently under the event horizon?_

It's not "matter" that "works differently", it's the geometry of spacetime itself. The geometry of spacetime inside the event horizon is simply different from what you are used to, and has different properties than those your intuition is familiar with. One of those properties is having a singularity a finite time in the future.

 _> To me it looks like BH should be the very similar lump of neutrons, just so heavy that light can no longer escape. So what? It should still be a spherical lump of neutrons underneath, just denser._

No, that's not what a black hole is at all. A black hole is vacuum inside. It is not an ordinary object made of matter. It is made of very unusual and counterintuitive spacetime geometry. Nothing else.

As for the matter that originally collapsed to form the black hole, it continued to collapse until it reached zero size and formed the singularity. It isn't there any more. While it was collapsing, its physics was the same as for any other body of collapsing matter; nothing about that changed when it fell below the event horizon. But the black hole is not made of the matter that collapsed.

The "black hole" concept you are describing would make sense in Newtonian physics (and indeed John Michell in the 1700s proposed a similar model of a Newtonian gravitating body with escape velocity greater than the speed of light that worked like this), but it is not possible in GR. GR is not the same as Newtonian physics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Are there similar predictions but on a short time scale. Like from now until 10,000 AD?

Culture, technology, and geology (and hey, everything else, biology, astronomy..)

I find it hard to try and see what the future may hold, and it seems that is the case since we're at an event horizon of human culture change. Talks of singularity already having come upon us is relevant in terms of predictability to a certain extent, but I kind of feel comfortable to say that humanity will indeed stabilize in at most 5k years, since we're already hitting marginal returns in technology investments. There might be two more singularities that can unlock more unpredictability: AI and biology.

<comment><USER5> I was always looking for some "realistic" SciFi for the next let's say 500-1000 yrs. I couldn't find anything that didn't include some stuff that was clearly coming out of the Fantasy domain

<comment><USER16> Well, 120 years ago moon landing was from fantasy domain too :)

<comment><USER5> Fair enough :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looking at the future of humanity section:

> 10,000 - If globalization trends lead to panmixia, human genetic variation > will no longer be regionalized, as the effective population size will equal > the actual population size

> 10,000 - Humanity has a 95% probability of being extinct by this date, > according to Brandon Carter's formulation of the controversial Doomsday > argument, which argues that half of the humans who will ever have lived have > probably already been born.

So in 10,000 years we're either all going to look the same or we'll all be dead? Yikes.

<comment><USER18> "no longer be regionalized" implies greater but not absolute homogeneity to me. There will likely still be variation, but it won't be associated to different countries or continents as it is now.

<comment><USER19> So, a _slim_ chance racism will cease to exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There was an artistic video about the far-future timeline, part of it was post-humans first jumping form star to star, then making new stars from hydrogen, then splitting stars into small stars to conserve hydrogen, then sitting out the rest of their existence around one last decaying star.

Anyone remembers that video? Wish I could find it now.

<comment><USER21> Heat death is also the central plot of Asimov's short story, "the last question": [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question)

<comment><USER22> I came across that just yesterday funnily enough through Scott Adams going on about a podcast featuring it. (American Red Pilled, Let there be light)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Some events have a 5k years period between them but the first one "far" in the future is 10k years from now. I wonder though, are there any imminent or very likely event to happen between today and the next 5k years? I mean, that would fall in the categories listed there...

<comment><USER24> For Europe that would certainly be post-glacial rebound. Gulf of Bothnia cut off from the Baltic Sea, and England slowly sinking (many people would have strong opinions about it, I guess). Netherlands and Venice are a league on their own with sea flooding problems.

Then pale skin and blonde/red hairs evolved when humans started to reclaim land after withdrawal of glacier in the same region of Europe, so 5k-10k years is sufficient for a new appearance feature in humans to evolve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Makes cleaning the garage seem a bit futile.

<comment><USER26> certainly, why bother? :-)

In the same vein there was a joke that goes something like this:

A professor is giving a lecture and he says:

-"In 4 billion years Andromeda will collide with our galaxy".

Somebody in the audience stand up and says:

-"Excuse me! did you say 4 billion or 4 million?"

-"Four billion"

-"Dude... you worried me there for a moment.."

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The most mind-bending parts are those that occur beyond Heat Death.

<comment><USER28> Roger Penrose has really mind-bending observation and theory about the time past heat death in the 'Cycles of Time'.

After 10e100 years when there is only massless particles like photon's left and black holes have evaporated, time essentially stops existing. Photons, gluons and gravitons just go without any new events to infinity.

<comment><USER29> Also listened to this and was mind-blown. But my take away was that at this point photons can then "make it to infinity" which sort of meant they will get through to (or cause?) the next big bang. Maybe all the photons combine and cause the big bang? One thing I didn't understand was that he said this meant that signals could make it through to the next iteration of the universe. However my understanding was that all photons are scattered by the surface of last scattering (CMBR), so how could this be possible?

<comment><USER27> Spontaneous entropy decrease that leads to Big Bangs at least every 10^10^10^56 years.

Well after heat death and "final" energy state of the Universe.

10^10^10^56 years sounds like a long time, but it's way smaller than infinity... Imagine Graham's number, which is still finite and thus much smaller than infinity... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%27s_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%27s_number)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> A prediction for 1.1 billion years in the future:

> The Sun's luminosity has risen by 10%, causing Earth's surface temperatures > to reach an average of c. 320 K (47 °C; 116 °F). The atmosphere will become > a "moist greenhouse", resulting in a runaway evaporation of the > oceans.[65][70] This would cause plate tectonics to stop completely, if not > already stopped before this time.[71]

Would somebody be able to ELI5 the connection the Earth's average temperature and plate tectonics?

<comment><USER31> Not a geologist, but I rember reading something about this a while back, so this might be BS. I believe it's because the water being pulled down at the subduction zones (where one plate gets forced down under another) help lubricate the whole process. I think that without that water I think the mantel becomes too stiff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> >The red supergiant star Antares will likely have exploded in a supernova. The explosion should be easily visible on Earth in daylight

How would that look like? Can't imagine it.

<comment><USER33> The wiki links seem to say that they expect the supernova to register at -12.5 apparent magnitude. The sun has an apparent magnitude of -27, and the full moon has an apparent magnitude of -12.

So the supernova will first appear as a single dot approximately as bright as a full moon hanging in the sky. I don't know how large the explosion will appear, but the article on the Crab Nebula ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054)) which was probably observed by Chinese (and other) astronomers in has some descriptions, as well as a simulated image of the skyscape the astonomers may have seen. SN 1054 was estimated to have an apparent magnitude of -6, so like 250 times dimmer than they think Antares will be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> thank you for this wonderful rabbit hole into Boltzmann Brains! [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain)

</comment><comment><USER24> Still too early to invest in real estate on Lōihi, dammit. Post-glacial rebounds in Scandinavia and Canada are much more promising.

</comment><comment><USER35> Somewhat related: "The End of the World", which is an 8-episode podcast which presents some of the ways how the world could come to an end.

[https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-end-of-the- world-w...](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-end-of-the-world-with- josh-clark/id1437682381)

</comment><comment><USER36> I love this kind of long term timeline.

One science-fiction author writing about far futures is Stephen Baxter.

</comment><comment><USER37> So, GWT 3 won't happen ever. OK.

</comment><comment><USER38> There is a lot of awful naming throughout the scientific community, but "Milky Way" has long been my personal least favorite.

'...the Andromeda Galaxy will have collided with the Milky Way, which will thereafter merge to form a galaxy dubbed "Milkomeda"'

Now it's my second least favorite.

<comment><USER39> Maybe you'll prefer the original (dead-language) Latin version: Via Lactea. Sounds cooler to me, maybe because it's a Dead language name.

<comment><USER40> Incidentally that is exactly what we call it in Spanish.

Fun tangential fact: "Star Wars" in Spanish is known as "Galaxy Wars" (La Guerra de Las Galaxias.)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Beautiful Hand-made Irish Whistles - <AUTHOR> http://www.ethnicwind.com I am simply stunned at the intro song to this site.. sounds other worldly. <comment><AUTHOR> Just to give some context, a friend send this across.. and I absolutely am blown away by the intro music that the site loads up.. not to mention the actual craftsmanship.

Wow. Stunned.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is a really beautiful site. Thank you for posting it. Not just the intro music but the graphics and layout and other details have a lot of appeal. I also notice there is an on/off option for the music, which I think is a very nice touch. The music is nice as a sample of the product and for aesthetics but if you really want to surf the site and shop, I can see situations where the music would be an annoyance or distraction or inconvenience. I have fantasies that some day I will have some really awesome site. I always enjoy looking at good examples, though I am not that technically knowledgeable so I also hope to see opinions of other HNers.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Flash.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you find out about interesting open-source projects to work on? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> 1) Read Hacker News

2) Check Freshmeat.net (oops, sorry, Freecode)

3) subscribe to the Apache Incubator mailing list

4) browse apache.org, sourceforge.net, github.com, etc.

5) check #opensource hashtag on Twitter, G+, etc.

6) Google "open source" + <subject I'm interested in>

7) Start your own open-source project

8) Quora: <http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-cool-open-source-projects>

[http://www.quora.com/Open-Source/What-are-some-cool-open- sou...](http://www.quora.com/Open-Source/What-are-some-cool-open-source- projects-developed-in-Israel)

[http://www.quora.com/Open-Source/Which-cool-Open-Source- Proj...](http://www.quora.com/Open-Source/Which-cool-Open-Source-Projects- came-out-in-2010)

[http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-exceptionally-well- design...](http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-exceptionally-well-designed- open-source-projects-to-study)

etc.

9) hang out at a hackerspace

10) local Linux User's Group, Java User's Group, Perl Mongers, Ruby Brigade, etc. groups / technical Meetups</comment>


Former student uses USB Killer device to fry $58,000 worth of college's PCS - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/usb-killer-student-college-new-york <comment><USER2> Seems like a custodial sentence is inevitable and then deportation back to India upon emerging from imprisonment.

Not sure what motivated or drove him w.r.t. such wanton vandalism but the personal costs of the actions are going to be incredibly high.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Akuthota had recorded himself destroying one of the computers using his > iPhone, stating "I'm going to kill this guy" before he inserted the USB > Killer device into the PC's USB port.

I don't know about everyone else, but I totally read his quote in an Indian accent and replaced "this guy" with "dis guy". I've heard so many Indians use "this guy" when explaining something, it must be an idiom in their language.

</comment><comment><USER4> Also discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19689601](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19689601)

</comment><comment><USER5> Open that webpage and get attacked by three different modals.

<comment><USER6> Not with 3rd party Javascript disabled. I find an agressive uBlock policy breaks most websites, but less than they're broken by default

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> Hacker News Guidelines

> What to Submit

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes > more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the > answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're > evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or > disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's > probably off-topic.

<comment><USER7> > Interesting new phenomenon.

I feel like usb-killer attacks in the wild is interesting and new enough to warrant a post here.</comment></comment>


Browser wars could improve productivity, but the enterprise still loves IE6 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=17290

<comment><USER2> I have worked with dozens of I.T. groups, and their behavior is startlingly consistent: they're not about to risk changing anything. And it's for a simple reason: they are measured on Not F*cking Things Up. They are not about to have everything fall apart on their watch, because they honestly believe they will not have a job.

Realistically, I think the only way business I.T. will ever change, is for the metrics to change. Rather than the stupid and threatening measure of "don't screw up, ever, or else" and these 99.999999999% uptime numbers, I.T. must be guided under a new principle: "evolve constantly, at a reasonable pace, taking acceptable risks".

What's frustrating to me is that they "freeze", wanting to delay change as long as possible, not appreciating the irony that a snowball is being created. If they wait 5 years to upgrade a browser instead of 1 or 2, the cost of a mistake is far higher. If they refuse to allow beta software, ever, they are losing lead time on detecting possible issues. The list goes on.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a web developer who once worked as a low-level IT guy and I'm sorry but the excuses in the ZD comments just aren't flying with me.

First of all, any app that breaks in everything but IE 6 was written by somebody who is incompetent. Any business whose success hinges on such an app was equally incompetent in choosing it.

And let me make this very clear. We write our apps for modern browsers first and then fix the various flukes and oversights that have made IE 6 such a royal pain to deal with last and we are doing so in even quicker and dirtier ways the longer it drags on. I work at a major retailer that was probably also late in upgrading from IE 6 and even our managers are sick of hearing about what we can't do because IE 6 has market share and have stopped caring if people get an obviously subpar or uglier experience on that ridiculous browser if it shaves a week or two off of development.

And what, you're worried about security? That's why you're sticking it out with IE 6 and an ancient version of Outlook? Please.

Any IT department that's still on IE 6 is being run by somebody who was probably more attracted to IT for the favorable pay to training ratio and who has too little faith in their abilities and the abilities of the people they're responsible for to upgrade a freaking browser for crying out loud.

I don't care about how big your networks are. I don't care about your ridiculous IE 6-only apps that you should have been searching for alternatives to six months after IE 7 came out and you still didn't get updates from the "developers" (hacks with a GUI IDE of some sort more likely). If you're still on IE 6 you're not really interested in information technology, you don't know what you're doing and it's no surprise that management has started favoring cheap labor from overseas over homegrown incompetence. It's not like you're any better at communicating or have fewer excuses than some guy they picked up off the street in India anyway.

Cheap shot? Sure it is but how come nobody is coming after my job? It's not like JavaScript syntax is hard or anything right? If IT professionals were doing what they ought to be doing, which is continually honing their skills and improving the productivity of businesses rather than holding them back for fear of revealing their own incompetence they'd be seen as an asset rather than a necessary evil and an expense.

If your business is still on IE 6, whoever is responsible doesn't deserve their job as far as I'm concerned.</comment>